Primitive Brain
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Turn Hypervigilance Into Appropriate Alertness
Hypervigilance can feel nonnegotiable: if we stop watching, something will happen and no one will protect us. The system stays at maximum alert in bed, behind a locked door, or during an ordinary conversation. Trying to switch it off entirely may feel dangerous. A more workable goal is range—the ability to choose an alertness level…
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How do I decide… make the right decision?
Ever been stuck… Not sure what the right decision is? It’s a horrible feeling. I don’t know about you, but my brain can suck every ounce of energy out of my life trying to find a solution. The anxiety of not being able to decide feels awful. How do you decide? How do you break…
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Are your emotions CONTAGIOUS?
Are your emotions CONTAGIOUS? Mine certainly were, and I didn’t understand why. I’d be sitting ALONE in my office, far away from everyone else in the building. There would be a software bug, and POW! I would feel this surge of emotion. Anger. Frustration. Rage at the ridiculousness of wasting so much time on a…
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Tapping When Things Are Just Too HEAVY…
Sometimes we run into something that just seems too hard to do. For different reasons it can feel as impossible as trying to lift a 10,000 lb weight. Through a lot of trail and error, I’ve learned that the first thing I need to check is my primitive brain… If my survival or primitive brain…
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Who IS that person?!?!
Who IS that person?!?! I’ve said things I cannot BELIEVE came out of my mouth. You, too? I’ve committed to myself that I would do something important to my well-being and found myself procrastinating or distracting myself with Facebook and web surfing. You, too? I’ve at times wanted to curl up in a ball, or…
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It won’t work for me.
Have you ever longed for what other people have… heard how they did it… and thought “It won’t work for me?“ That painful longing can be so painful. So disheartening! Once our brain decides we can’t get there, we feel like a little kid looking through the window into a wonderland we can never visit.…
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The Familiar Can Feel Safer Than the Better
We can understand that an old pattern is painful and still return to it when we are tired, stressed, or overwhelmed. That does not mean we secretly want the pain. It may mean the nervous system knows how to run that pattern without needing to invent anything new. The familiar is predictable. Predictability can register…